


The Same Downward Spiral

by thesumofus



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Doctor/Patient, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:51:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4922032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesumofus/pseuds/thesumofus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin was never really one to do what he was told. He had devoted his life to finding the Arkenstone by his own choosing not because of vengeance or any sense of entitlement. He was not his Grandfather or even his Father and Thorin flat out refused to go down the same path those men had taken, his future was of no ones design but his own.<br/>So when he is admitted to Mirkwood Psychiatric Centre and is suddenly being told what to eat, when to sleep and how to stay happy it should go without saying that he's not impressed. Until, he meets his shrink, a strange little man who doesn't so much tell him what to do rather talks his ear off for an hour, three days a week but somehow it helps.<br/>Yet, while being kept unawares somewhere in the North of France Thorin is still unable to shake the urgency that landed him there in the first place. For while he's been talking about his feelings and being spoon-fed porridge a Hotel proprietor developer by the name of Smaug has been keeping his greedy, yellow eyes on the old Durin estate, Erebor. The Arkenstone might just be the key to save Thorin's old home if only him mentioning it didn't bring his family to tears and make his Doctor scribble furiously in his notebook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Same Downward Spiral

Thorin can't recall ever being so cold. He is as cold as death, as cold as his grandfather's cheeks resting beneath his two adolescent fingers, resting forevermore as with his father, presumably. Thorin never really did have much tolerance for cold, he would much rather be burned alive than frozen till life's last breath escapes his popiscle body. However any such means of passing would be welcome to him now. Depressing thoughts interspersed within his detestment of the temperature, not the worst state Thorin's ever awoken in. His arms plastered at his side grope for the wayward sheet yet with no avail. He squeezes his eyes shut as to bear no witness of no pitiful act and jabs the beside button that brings a nurse running.

"How may I help you Mr Durin."

He lets his eyes open a sliver to see that it's the pretty nurse. She is tall with her ginger hair twisted into a long, single braid. She is his usual nurse yet he hasn't bothered to commit her name to memory.

He looks back at her, it's not the first time Thorin has wished he could communicate in glares.

"Cold." he says shakily

The utterance unlocks a ferocity of self loathing within Thorin. Disgusted at his own inability to grasp his own blanket or act civil to the staff goading upon him like he's five years old again.  
  
Not too long ago Thorin would revolt against the notion and any such befitting treatment yet now he is more partial to agreeing with them, submitting to their whims.

He can't recall what has changed but he suspects it has something to do with the total betrayal of all those who once stood by his side.

By the time Thorin's finished with this morning's bleak resolution the pretty nurse has completed her task of tucking the blanket up to his chin. Without his usual weight of resentment he gives her a curt nod. She pulls back from looking across Thorin studying the titration of his IV drips to give him a unconcealed face of surprise. This pushes Thorin's civility for today to breaking point so he shuts his eyes on her aghast expression. The nurse studies him a second longer and exits the room. She pauses at the door and Thorin peeks his eyes at her odd expression.

No doubt she will go and tell the doctor of his progress or lack thereof. It's been a week a mere seven days, a mere ten since the incident yet already Thorin feels as if he has endured a life-time of this so called treatment. Feels as if his progress is monumental. That every ounce of control he supplies, every act of tolerance he uses has propelled him leaps and bounds to recovery if only he had someone to prove this to. On Monday he had tried to tell the nurses but they had all said the same thing. Even the head nurse who he had demanded to see spoke the six frustrating words

"Wait till you see the doctor."

When? When, he had asked yet the token reply had already been drawn

"Once you're settled in."

They were all bitches. He didn't believe they were putting medicine in his food or stealing his credit cards, he wasn't crazy after all, but they were all bitches the lot of them. That's why he hadn't spoken to them all week. Except when necessity amounted like "cold" or "thirsty" and then only to the pretty one. Which is why she was the only one he saw, Thorin suspects.  
  
He wasn't attracted to her, she was much too young and much too female but she managed to be less of a bitch to Thorin. In the first few days when he still had the energy to demand things she would still deny him but the first time around while the other nurses faffed about "seeing what they could do" with patronizing smiles and resentful eyes. Still, he knew she went and relayed information to this doctor. He could see it in her eyes, retaining information, studying his clenching fists strapped down on the bed. Bitch.

Thorin wonders if he's settled in yet, he is obviously displaying good relations with the staff.

Perhaps he has settled in, he has already seen the Doctor, yet the Doctor doesn't know that Thorin has seen him. It was too nights ago. Thorin lay awake, feigning sleep when he had heard a small cough at the door. It wasn't an announcing cough yet an involuntary one. Still it startled Thorin who had peered through a curtain of eyelashes to spy the man hurriedly writing notes in his doorway. He was wearing a white coat but Thorin could see the warm knitted jumper and sturdy jeans beneath it. On his feet were worn, brown leather loafers; he looks more like a grocer than a doctor.

He had scribbled his last word and brought the pen to the parting of his lips. Abruptly he had looked up and it felt to Thorin as if it was right into his eyes yet he left them their fraction open. Before he left the Doctor had stood there and gave him a sad look, not pitying just sad like it personally aggrieved him that Thorin was lying there.

He hasn't seen the man since.

His thoughts of his doctor are scrambled when the nurse re-enters his room with breakfast, porridge. She lays it before him and Thorin notices she avoids catching his eye.

She pauses before she leaves, indecision evident upon her sharp features.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" She decides to ask.

She usually just left him to his own devices, so the question startles Thorin who wonders if it was his earlier head nod which has sparked this change.

The words are out of his mouth before his mind has thought to stop them "Am I able to go outside?"

It's the most words he has said in succession for nearly five days and they croak themselves out gradually as if he has forgotten how to sound them.

Yet Thorin doesn't regret voicing them if only to see the girl's eyes glint in startled joy.

"Sure, it's a lovely day. How about we go after you finish your breakfast?" She says the words calmly but Thorin can see the excitement brewing.

He nods and spoons a mouthful of porridge into his mouth.

The nurse gives an affirmative nod back and scurries from the room ready to report back.  
Thorin doesn't particularly want to leave his room. He feels as if he is content to lie rotting here as long as his family see fit to keep him. The fight has left his body and for once since he was a child Thorin is comfortable letting other people keep him alive yet he'll remain unhappy. He refuses to let them make him happy. Going outside is not about raising his spirits as the nurse thinks but gaging his surrroundings. He was foolish when they first admitted him. He busied himself with his anger when he should of been acting clever. Never mind, Thorin thought pessimistically as he scraped the last of the porridge from his bowl, he has time.

The nurse comes back with another nurse who Thorin remembers trying to take a swing at as he pulled him out of the car. He is a big man, pushing 7 feet. With primitive yet gentle brown eyes. His thick hair is pulled back from his face in a bun and rough stubble of brown, blond and grey generously adorn his face. With him he has a wheel chair.

"Mr Durin? This is Beorn he's gonna come with us on our walk."

"The water lillies are blooming." Beorn adds as if in explanation and Thorin is struck by the ridiculousness of it all. He lets out a low chuckle and when he looks back up at the nurses he sees the girl has a look of pure confusion while Beorn gazes at him seriously.

He lets them clear his breakfast and unclasp his shackles. The girl looks as if she wants to give him a warning but thinks better of it. Beorn's warning comes as a tight clasp on the shoulder as he helps Thorin into the wheel chair.

"Tauriel his gauge needs changing." Beorn murmurs as he bends down to place Thorins legs upon the rests.

"Which one?" Tauriel, the girl replies from where she is haphazardly making Thorin's bed.

"The one on his leg." Beorn informs her while lightly grazing over the leg in question with his large fingers.

Thorin looks down at his leg. It has swelled up since first coming here. It had been hurting quite a bit yet he had not bothered to tell anyone.

"Right. Okay Mr Durin I'll just set about changing your bandages then we'll go outside."

Thorin nods which draws Tauriel's eyes to the bandage on his head.

"Oh, we may as well change them both while we're here." She murmurs unraveling a roll of bandage.

Thorin sits still as Tauriel sets to work, rubbing his wrists absent-mindedly. He had forgotten about his head wound he thought numbly. Weirdly he felt the bandage was just some adornment received for arriving here. Tangible proof of the terror that was supposedly wracking his mind.

He can't remember getting the one of his leg and all he can recall of his head wound is a swelling pain, dim surroundings steadily become dimmer, the cold drip of water making the air hang heavy and cold around him.

Perhaps he should ask the nurse about the origins of his wounds but after musing the idea for a moment he also thinks it better to keep his mouth shut. Ever since his uncongenial arrival Thorin cannot shake the feeling that every word he dares utter to anyone will be used against him. He chides himself again for not being more clever.

Soon Tauriel had finished and the party made their way through linol hallways and double doors. Beorn pushed the wheel chair while Tauriel walked along beside it, they talk animatedly about the grounds. Something about tadpoles, flowers along the path and the fountain having just undergone its repairs.

Thorin tunes them out. Something more thought provoking then gardening catches his attention. The hall the walked down had many doors along it, not untypical for a hospital. As the passed each door Thorin got a seconds look of the rooms inside, rooms like his own. In most of the rooms were men, patients. Young and old. Some in bed or in chairs by the window. One man walked small circles singing to himself. They were all wearing sweats like Thorin, some had bandages like Thorin, some stared listlessly at the ceiling like Thorin.

It was easy sitting in his room ignoring everyone and everything but out here it was different and Thorin was struck with the inevitability of the situation he had somehow gotten himself into. There was no getting back from this. No pretending it never happened. Whether he accepted it or not Thorin had reached rock bottom without accounting the downfall which lead him here, and he hit it hard.

The next thing he knows urgent green eyes are locked onto his.

"Mr Durin? Thorin? Thorin, can you hear me? What's the matter?"

He ignores her urgency, disagrees, despises it until he looks down at his hands white, clasped to the arm rests of the wheel chair. They shake with unwraught weariness, damp sweat has beaded upon his forehead.

"Thorin? It's okay we'll take you back to your room."

"No. Take me outside" he begs out in a sob.

He can't bear having to be pushed through that corridor again. He squeezes his eyes shut as he hears Tauriel and Beorn's murmured argument of where to take him. He notices wearily that the singing has stopped and he wonders whether it was anything he had done to warrant the silence. The thought escapes him as he feels a soft breeze upon his face.

He opens his eyes. The first thought that occurs to him is that they're wet the second is

"This is not Dorset."

Tauriel replies but he doesn't listen, his own memory has bet him to it. The stream bordering a surface of grass, a white bridge underneath a broad maple tree, trails of white stones cutting paths throughout.

Thorin's fourteen again. Avoiding busy nurses eyes as he guesses through halls, relief hits him like the breeze as he finds the exit to sweeping grounds. People dotted around ignore him grant him no part in their vast worlds or dominating quests and Thorin thanks them for it. He hides behind the maple and makes helicopters out of it's leaves. Watch as they swoop up to only descend directly down into the water below. Spiraling down. Downward spiral. He recalls his Mother harshly whispering the words to his Father.

"Accept it Thrain, he's just on a downward spiral better now before he hurts himself or worse, Thorin."

Thorin had inched back from the landing as his parent's voices rose with his discomfort.

His parents were worried that Thorin's grandfather may hurt him that they never stopped to realise the hurt they were inflicting themselves.

Thorin comes home to an empty house. Chess pieces stay unbothered from their positions upon the board on the coffee table. Pantry vacant of edible commodities. Difficult maths problems lying unattemptable in his bag.

There is no one to play chess with, to cook for or to help him with his homework anymore.

He races up stairs. Ignores the closed door on the landing. Doesn't softly knock upon the varnished wood ever again.

He has run out of leaves to commit to the water.

A small cough comes from behind his tree. A young man steps out.

"What are you doing here?" He asks

Thorin shrugs and concentrates on conquering the lump of sadness in his throat.

"I think your family might be looking for you."

Thorin gives a weaker shrug. He feels the man hover behind him and silently wills him to leave or to go tell his parents where he is or to do anything but stoop over Thorin's back.

A helicopter leaf is deployed over Thorin's head and he knows the man has no intention of leaving him alone.

"I used to come out here and do this when I was a kid." he says as he releases another aircraft from between his fingers. Thorin feels more than sees the man sit down beside him, a comfortable distance away.

Curiosity turns Thorin's head a minuscule amount to meet his companions sharp features, white blonde hair and smart clothes.

He isn't wearing the white coats or blue uniform of the medical staff nor is he in the pajamas of which their patients favored and this produces a conundrum in Thorin's eyes. Yet not the only one.

"You don't speak french." He wonders aloud

"au contraire" the man quips back, teasing heavy in his tone.

Thorin doesn't know what this means and grudgingly he tells the man as much.

"Well, I never claimed knowledge of your prowess in French now did I Thorin?" and Thorin can hear the grin in his voice now.

"How do you know my name?" becomes a more pressing matter than any verbal defense.

"They were calling for you." The man says the words like they are obvious and they partly are as Thorin didn't need to ask who 'they' were. Yet he wasn't so far from the main building. Where were Thorin's parents looking if he couldn't hear their calls.

"Why didn't you answer, your mother sounded worried." he added after a moment when the boy made it obvious he wasn't going to reply.

He didn't sound chiding rather simply curious. Still, the question riles Thorin.

"I wasn't being difficult. I didn't hear them." he mumbles angrily.

"Why would a child be so caught up in his own thoughts to miss his mother's voice shouting his name?"

Was that the reason? Thorin had come to think that hearing was the default sense. One you couldn't turn off at will. He had tried many a time in class or when yells and swear reached his bedroom late at night but to no avail.

It had become all too personal a change in topic was in order.

"I'm not a child. I doubt you have more than 6 years on me." Thorin said snottily the way only a fourteen year old boy with far too much emotional strain could.

"Ah yes, be that as it may but it's a vital six years. Your frontal lobe will finish developing." the stranger assured Thorin he wasn't to be beaten so easily.

"What's a frontal lobe?" Thorin knew this man was just trying to make him feel inferior in age but Thorin couldn't help not knowing.

"It's a part of your brain and it helps solve problems and make decisions. It also determines your behaviors and emotions. A lot of people are here because their frontal lobes are damaged or not working properly." The man speaks carefully thought upon words.

"Is that why my Grandfather's here?" Thorin's answer takes a lot less thought.

The man paused and Thorin could see the trepidation in his face.

"I know you know, please tell me. My parent's don't tell me anything I know they're just trying to protect me or whatever but it's really annoying. They say Grandpa's sick, then we go on holiday to France and now suddenly we're here and I'm not allowed to know anything." Thorin relays urgently as the man must understand how deserving of knowledge he is.

"Yes. That's the answer. Your Grandfather has Alzheimer's disease which means his frontal lobe is slowly disintegrating and along with it his ability to remember or connect common events and control his emotions." the man says in the same controlled speech.

"Will he ever come home?"

Thorin stares pleadingly into the mans eyes as he give a small, resolute shake of his head.

  
**

  
He's no longer outside when he wakes. He is returned once more to his room and all Thorin can feel in his emptiness is the relief that he didn't have to take the return journey down that dreaded corridor. That's until he feels the startling realization that he's not alone.

Thorin blames the newly arrived darkness for not seeing the figure straight away. As Thorin's eyes land on him he stands up and walks over to the Thorin's bedside to switch on the lamp.

As Thorin blinks away the discomfort of his polarized pupils the retreating man comes into view.

As he stands before Thorin's bed now he can see the man's sharp features, short and strait blonde hair and is wearing a dark navy suit with a crisp white shirt.

"Who are you?" Thorin questions the stranger while ignoring

"Thranduil Greenleaf at your service Mr Durin."

"How do you know my name?" Thorin spits unjustly threatened by the at ease newcomer.

Thranduil looks at him bemusedly and raises the clipboard from the foot of his bed in answer.

Thorin is distracted from the rudeness of the man by a feeling of intrusion in his right arm. He looks down at it to see a drip connected there, at the joint.

"What's all this?" He murmurs in his confusion

"You feinted 3 hours ago. When we bought you back in you had a fit of epilepsy. They're sedatives."

Thorin feels torn between two opposing ideas. Foremost he is indebted to know the source of the treatment but still resents this man for being the one to inform him.

"Thank-you but I would ask you to leave. I'm tired. I might sleep now." He says icily.

"Oh I don't think I'm quite ready to go yet." Thandruil gives him a mock smile and looks back down at the clipboard still in his hands.

"Fuck off." the unwarranted words leave Thorin's mouth

"I would implore you to start using your manners Mr Durin, as rusty and minimal as they are for it is my establishment you find yourself cohabiting."

Thorin spluttered only a moment before his trying week funneled itself into words to this rude, french bastard.

"Oh I beg of you to forgive my rudeness Lord a La prick and please feel free to toss me out of this godforsaken hell hole and do not hesitate to fuck off in the meantime." Thorin spat ignore the pain in his head pressing to his skull.

Thranduil's amusement only faltered for a second.

"I must admit I harbored a little interest in seeing you return here to Mirkwood Thorin but I never expected you to faint at the sight of it or hear you utter such profanities at my face." he says coolly.

"You-" already churned up memories reconcile themselves behind Thorin's eyes.

"Oh so you do remember, I'll let your doctor know that at least some of your mental faculties appear to be working. We can definitely cross well tempered off the list." Thranduil said scathingly.

"You can't speak to me that way." Gritted out Thorin, truly wanting nothing more to give into the drowsiness the medicine was supplying.

"On the contrary I can speak to you how I like but no, you're right I'm being a little unfair. You're just a patient after all." The haughtiness returned.

"I didn't ask to be brought here." Thorin squeezed his eyes shut against the pain and the conversation he could find no feasible end to.

"No one usually does but still our rooms are filled. Love is a curious thing." Thranduil pondered idly as he began to explore one such room.

"If your heart's made of ice." Thorin mutters. Eyes still closed to the flicker of reproach upon Thranduil's face.

"Families bring us their loved ones and they thank us and they're always so apologetic and guilty but yet, visiting day comes round and nobody comes." He continues a infliction to his words which wasn't there before.

"People have lives." Thorin says dutifully and quiet.

"People like your family?" bites back Thranduil who had now moved to stand over the paitent's bed.

"What do you want?" Thorin's eyes spring open to the cold blue ones hovering above. He doesn't flinch from the proximity but settles further down, faking nochalance.

"I remember you visited Thrain once." He searches Thorin's eyes which have moved from his.

"Twice." Thorin corrects automatically.

"Hmm oh how could I forget the second time, the last time. That's when you really get to see what love is. The neglected loved one is dying or passes away and the absentee family returns for the squabble over wills. The family house, Dad's old porsche and Mum's earrings." The man leans backwards and returns walking the room.

"Like I have a penny to my name." Says Thorin neutrally as he is returned some much needed space.

"Take it as a blessing. Thrór had plenty as I remember, pennies that is." The blonde man had taken his seat again at the back of the room. Light from some unknown source outside illuminated his face in an orange glow.

"All gone now. I never saw a cent." Thorin said through a yawn. Some of the pain in his head had subsided the medicine was doing its work.

"No you saw something much more valuable, didn't you?" Thranduil turned from whatever he was studying out the window to give Thorin a piercing glare.

"I don't know what your talking about." Thorin said carefully, vaguely aware in his hazy state of the less than ideal place the conversation had reached.

Thranduil didn't look disappointed and his face gleamed as he was given another tack.

"Did you ever wonder why you parents took Thrór to another country to recover rather than his own." He asks

Something in Thorin's worn face must of told him he didn't or perhaps Thranduil needed no confirmation for he continued

"He possessed something of my fathers very dear to our family and your parents promised it back if we were to take him in. We never saw it back. Money was shoved our way as Thrór's legacy folded but we never got what we truly rallied for."

"Is that why I'm here?" Thorin replied blatantly just wanting simple, honest answers followed by hours of uninterrupted rest.

"No, I'm guessing you're here for something akin to sentiment. People hold such importance in where they come to be born and die." Thranduil flickered his fingers over the armrests of the chair as if  it was a throne and he a great immortal King, unmet with the mentalities of poor, expendable folk.

"Can you promise me I'll die here?" weariness had taken over all of Thorin's faculties now and death didn't seem too abhorrent.

Yet his words seemed to have an affect upon Thranduil who stood up once he realised where the conversation had gone.

"I can promise no such thing. It's far from your time Thorin Durin."

"My family seem to think different." Thorin said soberly with a small laugh before giving way to the sleep which had since infiltrated everywhere but a small part of his mind. Just as the last piece of consciousness leaves him Thorin thinks he hears Thranduil say

"Perhaps but love really is a curious thing."


End file.
